LOS ANGELES -- Stanford used a four-hit day from Austin Slater, two RBI from Zach Hoffpauir and Alex Blandino and excellent pitching by three hurlers to beat UCLA, 5-2, Sunday afternoon at Jackie Robinson Stadium. The Cardinal won for the sixth time in its last seven road games to take the series over UCLA for the fourth consecutive year.

“I think it’s big,” said Mark Marquess, the Clarke and Elizabeth Nelson Director of Baseball. “You want to win the league, but realistically that’s not going to happen for us, so we have to try to win every game that we can. Every win that we can get is big for us.”

Two-out hitting was once again the key to Stanford’s success, as the Cardinal went 5-13 with four RBI in at-bats with two down. Yesterday, Stanford picked up six two-out hits on its way to a 5-0 victory to even the series.

The clutch hitting helped the Cardinal get over .500 for the first time in 2014. Slater’s four hits were a career high, while Hoffpauir tied his career-best with three singles.

Logan James, A.J. Vanegas and Christopher Castellanos split the game on the mound with four, three and two innings, respectively. Vanegas (2-2) was awarded the win after not allowing a run from the fifth through seventh innings.

Stanford (21-20, 9-12 Pac-12) used its usual closer, Vanegas, in an important spot in the fifth, entering with runners on first and second and nobody out after UCLA (23-21-1, 10-11 Pac-12) had already scored one. Vanegas quickly settled in to retire three straight, including a strikeout to end the frame.

Blandino started the scoring by blasting his Pac-12-leading seventh homer of the year in the top of the first. The junior third baseman lifted a 1-0 pitch into the garden well past the left field wall on a no-doubt solo shot.

Back-to-back two-out hits in the fourth scored two more to make it 3-0. Dominic Jose line a double to the right field corner and Hoffpauir followed with an RBI single off of starting pitcher Cody Poteet (3-3).

Blandino added an insurance run on a sac fly in the seventh and Hoffpauir had his second RBI single in the eighth. Hoffpauir’s hit finished a perfect day at the plate, as he also walked while going 3-3.

The insurance runs proved helpful in the ninth. UCLA put runners on the corners, after scoring for a second time in the eighth, but Castellanos got Bruins leadoff man Brian Carroll to ground out to second.

Trent Chatterton led UCLA with three hits. The Bruins, which out-hit Stanford by one, left eight on base to the Cardinal's seven.

Stanford takes its momentum into a Tuesday game with Santa Clara and a weekend series at Arizona. The Cardinal’s Pac-12 stretch run includes the Wildcats, Washington State and Utah.